When I first began to read about produsage, I really didn't know what it meant. I mean, you can tell the root words of this one word (production and usage). But, I really didn't get what Lang was talking about until today.
Hearing the definition today in class "the collaborative and continuous building and extending of existing content in pursuit of further improvement" was really a long way to say people coming together, making a collaborative effort, for one common goal. That's when the light bulb came on for me; I immediately thought about Wikipedia and our upcoming assignment for class. I even located the article for it on Wikipedia, but it's referred as participatory culture. Which I think is an even better title for it because it says exactly what it does. Here's the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_culture.
I think produsage is a fantastic idea because you can get much needed feedback whether you want it or not. It also makes people collaborate and brainstorm to come to a general agreement on various topics. I feel it's kinda like group work without that one lazy person who doesn't do any work but gets the same grade as you do.
I really didn't know what the word meant at first either but funny how there seems to be an article on Wikipedia for almost any and every topic. And to have it like you said for something we discussed in class makes it a little better to understand with the help of wikipedia. Collaboration for learning and getting people involved in the research definitely is a good thing to me.
ReplyDeleteWe have talked quite a bit in class about how technology, over the past decade, has made it possible for anyone to produce and create just as well as the pros. Thus we have produsage... Which can be read as Produs-age. Put "The" in front of it and it's ironic, albeit rather contrived.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great insight, Jesse. So "produsage" is a concept that can have multiple meanings!
ReplyDeleteIn some ways I think produsage, in some ways further blurs the line between pro and amateur these days. As Jesse said, amateurs can do things just as well as the pros. With the available resources and feedback received, anything can be done ny enough people if the initiative is there
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